50,000 signatures to the district council in January 2011 on the basis that the farm was cruel and would put other farmers out of business. 38 Degrees also singled out neighbouring farmers who had been keen to use the 'digestate' (left from the cow manure after anaerobic digestion had taken place) on their arable land as a more sustainable and natural source of fertilisers and to replace essential organic matter. These farmers pulled out of their agreements due to fear of reprisals after being named in adverts which urged the public to target them directly. However, a letter sent by the Farm Animal Welfare Council to government ministers stated that cow welfare need not be compromised in large dairy units, a message echoed by the RSPCA, which, despite not permitting year-round housing for dairy cows within its Freedom Foods standards, said it didn't believe 'big was necessarily bad' and in fact could offer welfare benefits if implemented correctly. Other debates range around the potential for a large dairy such as this to improve food security and opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of milk production through better efficiency and the adoption of technology such as anaerobic digestion. More recently the Government has published its Foresight report on Food and Farming, and the dairy's developers have asserted that their plans would help address the report's conclusions that farming needs to produce more food using fewer resources while tackling climate change. During the consultation period, the Council reported as many as 14,000 objections had been lodged with PETA claiming responsibility for at least 6,000 CIWF 5,000, and other animal and vegan groups claiming many more; this was substantiated by an extensive social media campaign orchestrated by these groups against the proposal. However, this was countered by growing dairy industry support for the Nocton proposal, illustrated in submissions from the National Farmers Union (England and Wales) (NFU), the Country Land and Business Association, and Dairy UK, representing processors and farmers. Dairy UK warned: "Reject Nocton and UK dairy will suffer." Supermarket views Supermarket chains Sainsbury, Tesco, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, as well as online food retailer Ocado, all indicated they did not intend to buy milk from 'super-dairies', while Morrisons and American-owned Asda seemed to support them. According to The Independent, Morrisons said they would consider buying from the farm, while Asda said they refused to answer such a "hypothetical" question. In